Infighting involving senior United
Nations staff is threatening East Timor's transition to independence, a
senior official says.

The policy dispute has led to the
resignation of the UN's head of district administration, who claims
"Stalinist" and "colonialist" practises by several
senior staff members are jeopardising the UN mission.

In his letter of resignation, dated March
6, Professor Jarat Chopra warned that a handful of senior UN officials
were more interested in self-advancement than helping the East Timorese
rebuild their devastated country.

"The courageous course for UNTAET
[the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor] would have been to fix
a date for independence, organise early elections for a Constituent
Assembly, transfer power and remain in East Timor for long-term capacity
building," Professor Chopra wrote.

"I don't believe we [UNTAET] are
prepared to do this even now. Without a meaningful timetable and
methodical stages for a transfer of power, this mission will drift, hold
an election as an exit strategy next year and leave the Timorese with no
genuine capacity built. We will have replicated the overnight
decolonisations of decades past."

Professor Chopra, a Briton, is considered
one of the most experienced and qualified of the UNTAET administrators. He
designed East Timor's district administration policy based on a strategy
developed last June for the chairman of the United States Joint Chiefs of
Staff. His resignation letter was addressed to UNTAET's head, Mr Sergio
Vieira de Mello.

Professor Chopra, a research associate
and lecturer in international law at Brown University in the US, was
formerly special assistant in peacekeeping at the International Institute
for Strategic Studies in London.

The most controversial element of the
district policy is a World Bank-funded $A57million community empowerment
project (CEP), which would let sub-district and village-level officials
determine their own development and reconstruction priorities.

Under the plan those officials would be
democratically elected, a prerequisite strongly opposed by several senior
UNTAET officials, but notably by the head of Territorial Administration,
Mr Jesudas Bell. Mr Bell's opposition to the CEP strained relations with
several senior members of the East Timorese pro-independence body, the
CNRT, including its president, Mr Xanana Gusmao.

While the CEP will go ahead, Professor
Chopra's staunch defence of the project's terms and conditions put him on
a collision course with Mr Bell.

He questioned Mr Bell's competence as an
administrator, claiming the department head was responsible for a spate of
resignations of other senior officials. A second UNTAET official, Mr David
Harland, was also singled out for criticism.

Yesterday, the Herald failed in several
attempts to contact Mr Bell, who is in Darwin, on his mobile telephone.
Asked for his reaction to claims by Professor Chopra that he had
"acted arrogantly, undermining the capacity of the office", Mr
Harland replied: "I don't want to talk to you about that."

Mr Harland is serving as UNTAET's Acting
Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Governance and
Public Administration.

The UN Mission in East Timor was
responsible for organising last August30's referendum on
self-determination, in which about 80per cent of the population voted for
independence from Indonesia. Within days, anti-independence militia backed
by Indonesian security forces began a murderous campaign of terror and
destruction across the territory.

Professor Chopra served as an election
monitor and was evacuated from Dili on September6 after witnessing the
destruction of the capital and the forced deportation of tens of thousands
of East Timorese.

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